Transylvanian Review 4/2012

Vol. XXI, No. 4, Winter 2012

• Paradigms

Editing Austrian Consular Documents from the Romanian Principalities and Serbia (1848–1849), p. 3
Ela CosmaAbstract - Editing Austrian Consular Documents from the Romanian Principalities and Serbia (1848–1849)
Discussing the editing of Austrian consular documents, the study presents unpublished historical sources regarding the Romanian Principalities and Serbia in 1848–1849. The study takes account of about 350 German language documents from the Vienna archives, now to be found in copies in the 1848 collection of George Bariþiu Institute of History in Cluj-Napoca. They reflect the activity of: the Habsburg consular agent in Wallachia, Casimir von Timoni; the consular agency in Iaºi led by consular agent August von Eisenbach; the Austrian consul in Galaþi, Wilhelm Christian Huber; Ferdinand Mayerhofer von Grünbühl’s consular mission in Belgrade, Vojvodina and Banat. Additional French- and Russian-language documents from Moscow and Odessa archives are also investigated. They include the correspondence between the Russian consulates and the Austrian consular agencies in the Danube Principalities 1848–1849, as well as the Habsburg General Consulate in Novorussia’s capital and its chief, Ludwig von Gutmannsthal. The study analyses palaeographic issues connected with the 1848 Habsburg consular documents, emphasizing the importance and benefits of exploring and editing the abovementioned archival sources.
Keywords: editing documents, modern German palaeography, modern French palaeography, Habsburg consular agencies, Romanian Principalities, Serbia, 1848–1849

Russian Military Sources and Archives about the Romanian Lands in 1848–1849, p. 20
Tatiana Onilov, Ramona PrejaAbstract - Russian Military Sources and Archives about the Romanian Lands in 1848–1849
The article describes the documentation, archive research, identification and processing of the Russian military documents and historical literature, carried out in the framework of the scientific project entitled “The Imperial Armies and the Romanians (1848–1849): Secret Military Testimonies from Russian and Austrian Archives.” This challenging project seeks to reveal unknown military data about events that took place in the Romanian Principalities during 1848–1849. Unedited and edited sources were identified in the Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian archives of Moscow, Odessa, and Kishinev. They reveal precious new information, found in less accessible archives. The article describes the documentation stages at the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova and at the National Library in Kishinev; at the Public State Historical Library and the Russian National Military-Historical Archive in Moscow; at the Maxim Gorki National Research Library in Odessa and at the State Archives of the Odessa Oblast, presenting the consulted archive collections. It also analyses various categories of Russian military historical sources, from historiographical works, military diaries, memoirs and correspondence, to press articles of that time and unedited archive documents. Keywords: Russian military documents, Romanian Principalities, 1848–1849, National Archives in Kishinev, Military-Historical Archive in Moscow, State Archives of the Odessa Oblast

Between Theory and Practice: Editing Transylvanian Romanian Historical Documents (1848–1900), p. 33
Daniela DetesanAbstract - Between Theory and Practice: Editing Transylvanian Romanian Historical Documents (1848–1900)
The study presents the general principles guiding, in practice, the editing of the Transylvanian Romanian historical documents from the second half of the 19th century. Nevertheless, there are some general norms and theoretical principles to be followed and to be concretely applied to texts written in Romanian (1848–1900). After describing the language debate in Transylvania before the 1848 Revolution, the author explains the contemporary attempts to shape and stabilize the Romanian language, presenting the etymological, phonetic and Latinist trends. The evolution of the Romanian language in the 19th century implies the need for a coherent, unified system to transcribe today older Romanian texts. The author debates the main issues involved in selecting, processing and editing these documents: transcription, punctuation, regime of capital letters, location of sources and references, date and place of the documents, proper names and nicknames, explanatory and critical footnotes, interpolated fragments in foreign languages, the document abstract (regestum), the indexes of localities and persons.
Keywords: editing Romanian documents, 19th century Transylvania, transcription principles, historical onomastics and nicknames

Campanile Epigraphy: A Study of Bells and Their Inscriptions in the Romanian Communities in Transylvania (18th–20th Centuries), p. 43
Elena Crinela HolomAbstract - Campanile Epigraphy: A Study of Bells and Their Inscriptions in the Romanian Communities in Transylvania (18th–20th Centuries)
Bells are generally valued for their sound, yet they can also be examined and classified according to the inscriptions they bear. In Western literature, campanile epigraphy is considered a distinct research field, capable of providing information about old beliefs and traditions, bringing a major contribution to social history and providing data pertaining to national and local history. At the same time, bell inscriptions offer a wide range of information of chronological, religious and secular nature, being also a valuable tool used in identifying distinctive attitudes and behaviors. On the basis of these assumptions, the present study proposes a thorough investigation of the texts engraved on bells, in order to determine whether any of the abovementioned aspects can be detected in the case of the bells belonging to the Romanian communities in Transylvania. To this end, we draw on a variety of sources: archives, monographs, parish chronicles, church press and periodicals, etc.Keywords: Transylvania, bell inscriptions, Romanian communities, 18th–20th centuries

Historical Reenactments of the Romanian Military History of the Modern Age, p. 51
Bogdan BriscuAbstract - Historical Reenactments of the Romanian Military History of the Modern Age
The study refers to the historical reenactments of modern history performed in the Romanian space. After tracing their origins, the author shows the role played by and the purposes of civilian and military reenactments. The Romanian military history of the Modern Age has been staged since 2004, and among the reenactment promoters we find enthusiasts from King Ferdinand I Military Museum and from the Institute of Art History in Bucharest, as well as from the Military History Clubs in Bucharest and Oradea. The author, himself a reenactor, then analyses reenactments as a scientific endeavor, describing the reconstitution of the uniform and firearms of a border soldier from the Romanian 1st Border Infantry Regiment No. 16 in Orlat, as well as the recreation of the clothing, cold weapons and drill training of a Romanian Landsturm fighter, belonging to the Auraria Gemina Legion, active in the 1848–1849 Romanian Revolution in Transylvania. Keywords: historical reenactment, Romanian military history, 1st Romanian Border Regiment in Orlat, Romanian Landsturm in 1848–1849

• Restitutions

An Unpublished Study by the Historian Silviu Dragomir, p. 65
Ioan-Aurel Pop
Sorin SiposAbstract - An Unpublished Study by the Historian Silviu Dragomir
The paper presents an unpublished study written by Silviu Dragomir in the context of the dispute between Romanian and Hungarian historians on the status of the Romanians in Transylvania, north of the Danube in general, and in Transylvania and Hungary in particular. After World War I, the reduction of Hungary to its ethnic borders and the presence of major Hungarian ethnic groups in the successor states gradually generated a very strong revisionist movement whose peak was reached at the beginning of World War II. Romania advocated the opposite position, namely the preservation of the borders established by the Versailles system. In both countries, historical writing was put in the service of the national cause. Dragomir’s study, found in manuscript form in the Library of the Romanian Academy, was prepared by the author either for a conference, or as a preliminary material in view of its subsequent publication, and it deals with the earliest references to the Romanians in Hungarian and papal documents. This study of Silviu Dragomir, despite the combative stance assumed by the author, remains a model of analysis for the Transylvanian Middle Ages, highly relevant and pertinent even today.Keywords: Silviu Dragomir, unpublished manuscript, medieval Transylvania, historical sources

• Transsilvanica

On the Problem of the Post-Avar “Ethnogenesis”: The 9th Century Polities of Banat, Crisana, and Transylvania in Comparative-Historical Context (II), p. 77
Denis AlimovAbstract - On the Problem of the Post-Avar “Ethnogenesis”: The 9th Century Polities of Banat, Crisana, and Transylvania in Comparative-Historical Context
The paper examines the 9th century ethno-political situation in the territory of the former Avar qaganate, that is, within the Carpathian Basin, in terms of the early medieval “ethnogenesis” interpreted as the making of ethno-political units (gentes). As a result, the so-called post-Avar “ethnogenesis” is conceptualized as a process whose main feature is the absence of fully fledged ethnic groups that could correspond to the polities that emerged on the ruins of the Avar qaganate and would be comparable to what was usually meant by the term gens in early medieval Latin sources. According to the author, this feature could be interpreted as the indication that on the territory of the former qaganate the formation of new political structures caused by the rise of post-Avar elites (polito-genesis) outran the emergence of new group identities (ethnogenesis). Another conclusion states that the polities of Menumorout, Glad, and Gelou, as described in Anonymus’ Gesta Hungarorum, are very similar in their principal characteristics to those attested for the 9th century post-Avar area by contemporary sources. Keywords: Avar qaganate, ethnogenesis, gens, Menumorout, Glad, Gelou

• Europe

Framing a Page of Contemporary History: Romania’s Symbolic Integration in the EU, p. 97
Nicoleta CorbuAbstract - Framing a Page of Contemporary History: Romania’s Symbolic Integration in the EU
In the context of the economic downturn and the crisis in the eurozone, the European integration has added a new layer to its symbolic meaning. The European discourse about its members reflected in the national media, as well as the opinion leaders’ voices in the public sphere reveal a more and more fractured image of the European Union and an imbalance of power clearly highlighted by the financial crisis. This article includes a quantitative content analysis of Romanian online media immediately after the first official sign of the postponement of Romania’s acession to the Schengen Area of Free Movement on 21 December 2010, a textual analysis of the opinion articles in online media regarding the EU, and ten expert interviews with prominent figures in the Romanian political arena. Findings show two dominant frames in the coverage of the Schengen Area, powerlessness and responsibility. The interviews provide symbolic explanations about the fractured image of the EU, the imbalance of power, and the symbolic position of Romania within the Union. Keywords: European Union, news frames, Schengen integration

• Tangencies

The Social Construction of Scientific Culture: Forms of Romanian Popular Science, p. 113Andreea MogosAbstract - The Social Construction of Scientific Culture: Forms of Romanian Popular Science
Science and society are tightly bound together and influence one another. Formal science communication operates alongside popular science communication and each one is differently constructed and transmitted. This paper aims to explain what scientific culture is, how it is constructed and what are its most visible forms, at international and national level. Scientific culture is a multidimensional concept which includes not only the products of formal scientific communication (scientific articles and books) but also the forms of popular science (books, feature films, press). It is extremely interesting to investigate the latter ones from a cultural perspective because they simultaneously show how the social representations of science are constructed, what their meanings are and how society relates to the scientific field. Keywords: scientific culture, science communication, popular science, science fiction

Marcel Avramescu and Interwar Romanian Esotericism, p. 123
Constantina Raveca BuleuAbstract - Marcel Avramescu and Interwar Romanian Esotericism
Still poorly known and sporadically treated in the intellectual history of the period, Marcel Avramescu is the key figure of Romanian interwar esotericism (1919–1938). He founded Memra (1934), the only interwar Romanian esoteric periodical, and played the role of a bizarre sage and magic trickster, the main protagonist of the so-called “esoteric” generation, which included, amongst others, the historian of religions Mircea Eliade. Playfully hiding behind many forged and eccentric names and signatures (Ionathan X. Uranus, Mark Abrams, the Astro-Magus a.s.o), Marcel Avramescu went through an avant-garde period, then an openly esoteric one, indebted to René Guénon, and finished by becoming an Orthodox priest. The following text analyses Avramescu’s spiritual evolution as mirrored by several controversial texts he had written, and the socio-cultural profile of the Romanian interwar cultural life, as a specific mixture of modern and traditionalist ideologies.Keywords: René Guénon, tradition, esotericism, theosophy, avant-garde, Romania, interwar period, Mircea Eliade, Marcel Avramescu

La cuisine régionale dans les stratégies de développement touristique de Maramures, p. 133
Sonia CatrinaAbstract - Valorizations and Changes in Regional Cuisine through the Tourism Development Strategies of Maramures
This article focuses on the practices and social representations to be found in a Romanian rural region whose reputation and tourist attractiveness was built on the local cuisine. We assess the tourism development strategies of the Maramureº region starting from the valorization of local cuisine as a regional heritage shared by all the inhabitants of this territory. How do the rural guesthouses build the reputation of their region through the cuisine? What is the place of the local cuisine in the tourism strategies of regional development? We therefore analyze the valorization of the local cuisine and its metamorphosis through an empirical study of the roles of different actors (locals and tourists) in the reconstitution of the cuisine starting from the premise that cuisine is a social construct for the tourists hosted by the tourism entrepreneurs of rural Maramureº who provide family-type lodging and boarding.Keywords: cuisine, valorization, changes, tourism development strategies, Maramures

• Literature

La déchéance de l’épopée (II), p. 147
Alexandra CiocârlieAbstract - The Decay of Epic Poetry
The study analyzes the classical Greek and Latin sources of the mock-heroic and burlesque epic Þiganiada (The Gypsiad, in two versions, 1800 and 1812) by Ion Budai-Deleanu (1760–1820), an outstanding representative of the Transylvanian Enlightenment who studied philosophy, law and theology in Vienna. Subtle or explicit, the numerous references to classical antiquity found in the actual text and in the notes to this modern epic clearly indicate the literary model embraced by this Enlightenment author, a model whose rules were adapted to a new and changed environment.Keywords: Ion Budai-Deleanu, Þiganiada (The Gypsiad), Homer, Virgil, mock-heroic epic